LiveScript(ID:5382/liv001)for LiveWire + Script (LiveWire was Netscape's db backend for the web) Internal name for the forerunner of JavaScript Related languages
References: I came to Netscape in April 1995, after seven years at Silicon Graphics and three years at MicroUnity Systems Engineering. Netscape was about a year old then and was looking for someone to work on a scripting language or some kind of language inside the browser that could be used to automate parts of a web page or make a web page more dynamic. Java had been around for five years at First Person and Sun, and had been retooled for the web in late 1994. Netscape was the first Java licensee, so the issue became: Can we do just Java, or do we need another language? There were people who argued strongly that Java's fine for programmers who build components, but there's a much larger audience of people who write scripts or maybe copy a script from somebody else and tweak it. These people are less specialized and may be paid to do something other than programming, like administer a network, and they write scripts part-time or on the side. If they're writing small pieces of code, they just want to get their code done with the minimal amount of fuss. Finally, we agreed that this new language should look like Java, but be a scripting language. Like all languages, it borrowed from others. LiveScript was the official name it was given when it first shipped in beta releases of Netscape Navigator 2.0 in September 1995, but we rechristened it JavaScript in a joint announcement with Sun on December 4, 1995. JavaScript attracted a lot of developer attention, because what people wanted back then (and still want) is the ability to go one step beyond HTML and add a little bit of code that makes a web page dynamic - that makes things move, respond to user input, or change color; that makes new windows pop up; or that raises a dialog box to ask a question, with an answer necessary to proceed - things that HTML cannot express. That's really where you need a programming language, but something simpler than Java or C++. Content creation should not be recondite. It should not be this bizarre arcana that only experts and gold-plated computer science gurus can do. There are economic advantages to lowering the entry costs in creating web content and in sharing it or aggregating it, like Netscape is doing in Web Building. Calling JavaScript "the glue that holds web pages together" is short and easy to use, but doesn't do justice to what's going on. Glue sets and hardens, but JavaScript is more dynamic than glue. It can create a reaction and make things keep going, like a catalyst. LiveScript becomes JavaScript In early December 1995, Netscape and Sun jointly announced that the scripting language would thereafter be known as JavaScript. Though Netscape had several good marketing reasons for adopting this name, the changeover may have contributed more confusion to both the Java and HTML scripting worlds than anyone had expected. Before the announcement, the language was already related to Java in some ways. Many of the basic syntax elements of the language were reminiscent of the C and C++ style of Java. For client-side scripting, the language was intended for very different purposes than Java — essentially, to function as a programming language integrated into HTML documents, rather than as a language for writing applets that occupy a fixed rectangular area on the page (and that are oblivious to whatever else may be on the page). Instead of Java’s full-blown programming language vocabulary (and conceptually difficult object-oriented approach), JavaScript had a small vocabulary and more easily digestible programming model. The true difficulty, it turned out, was making the distinction between Java and JavaScript clear to the world. Many computer journalists made major blunders when they said or implied that JavaScript was a simpler way of building Java applets. To this day, many programmers believe JavaScript to be synonymous with the Java language: They post Java queries to JavaScript-specific Internet newsgroups and mailing lists. The fact remains today that Java and JavaScript are more different than they are similar. Java support in a browser or operating system does not automatically imply JavaScript support. The two languages require entirely different interpreter engines to execute their lines of code. Whereas JavaScript support shipped in every platform-specific version of Navigator 2 in February 1996, Java was not available for Windows 3.1 users until late in the life of Navigator 3. (Many squirrelly technical issues make it difficult for this modern language to work in an “ancient” MS-DOS operating system.) Extract: JavaScript: A Language for All JavaScript: A Language for All The Java language is derived from C and C++, but it is a distinct language. Its main audience is the experienced programmer. That leaves out many Web page authors. I was dismayed at this situation when I first read about Java’s specifications. I would have preferred a language that casual programmers and scripters who use authoring tools such as ToolBook, HyperCard, and even Visual Basic could adopt quickly. As these accessible development platforms have shown, nonprofessional authors can dream up many creative applications, often for very specific tasks that no programmer would have the inclination to work on. Personal needs often drive development in the classroom, office, den, or garage. But Java was not going to be that kind of inclusive language. My spirits lifted several months later, in November 1995, when I heard of a scripting language project brewing at Netscape. Initially born under the name LiveScript, this language was developed in parallel with Netscape’s Web server'software. The language was to serve two purposes with the same syntax. One purpose was as a scripting language that Web server administrators could use to manage the server and connect its pages to other services, such as back-end databases and search engines for users looking up information. Extending the “Live” brand name further, Netscape assigned the name LiveWire to the database connectivity usage of JavaScript on the server. On the client side — in HTML documents — these scripts could be used to enhance Web pages in a number of ways. For example, an author could use LiveScript to make sure that the information a user entered into a form would be of the proper type. Instead of forcing the server or database to do the data validation (requiring data exchanges between the client browser and the server), the user's computer handles all the calculation work — putting some of that otherwise wasted horsepower to work. In essence, LiveScript could provide HTML-level interaction for the user. As the intensity of industry interest in Java grew, Netscape saw another opportunity for LiveScript: as a way for HTML documents (and their users) to communicate with Java applets. For example, a user might make some preference selections from checkboxes and pop-up selection lists located at the top of a Web page. Scrolling down to the next screenful, the user'sees text in the Java applet scrolling banner on the page that is customized to the settings made above. In this case, the LiveScript script sends the text that is to appear in the scrolling banner to the applet (and perhaps a new color to use for the banner’s background and text). While this is happening, the server doesn’t have to worry a bit about it, and the user hasn’t had to wait for communication between the browser and the server. As great an idea as this was initially, this connectivity feature didn’t make it into Navigator 2 when JavaScript first became available. |